My Magnificent but Messy Magnolias
By Ginny Stibolt

These magnolias would have made a mess of the lawn.

The grand southern magnolias (Magnolia
grandiflora) seem to typify southern elegance for most people.
Sip an icy mint julep on the veranda while sitting in your well-worn
rocking chair in the cool, deep shade of an ancient southern magnolia
with its fragrant white petals looking like a starched tuxedo shirt
contrasted against those glossy forest green leaves. Yep, your northern
friends would turn greener than those magnolia leaves. I know I
always wanted to have my own magnolia when I lived in Maryland,
but the lot was too small.

But wait! (Sound of record scratching...) Let’s look more closely
at that image. There is nothing, and I mean nothing, growing under
that spreading and shallow-rooted tree. The ground is littered with
piles of leathery leaves and the woody cone-like flower cores that
drop all year long. That elegant tree is mighty messy. My landscape
professor used to say that the southern magnolia is a fabulous tree,
but not in the middle of your yard because neither lawn nor
bedding flowers will grow under it. Plant it in a location where
its litter will not destroy lawns or gardens.

So back in June when we bought our
house, I decided that the two young magnolias planted in the middle of
our front lawn had to be moved. The house is only two years old and it
looks like they might have purchased these trees at Home Depot where I
noticed trees close to this size. One is about 15-feet and the other
about 12. I assumed that since they’d been planted so recently that
they would not have grown too far beyond the original root balls.

I pruned the roots and some of the
low branches of each tree back in June so they’d have a chance to
recover some before I transplanted them. To prune the roots, I cut
down to the depth of the blade of a regular garden shovel all around
at the edge of the mulched area. Then I repeated the trip around the
circle with a long bladed spade. In the end, I’d made an 18-inch deep
slice around both trees.

I also pruned the roots of two more
magnolias. The first one was a four-foot high wild southern magnolia
growing at the edge of the woods that was totally crowded out by oaks,
wax myrtle and catbriar. I also found that the previous owner had
planted a deciduous Asian magnolia too close to the house, and it had
been trimmed as part of a hedge – poor thing.

I was happy with the location of my two sweet bay magnolias (Magnolia
virginiana) growing at the edge of a clump of oaks in the
front yard. This lovely smaller magnolia often gets lost in the
shuffle when compared to its more glorious relative. Its leaves
and highly fragrant flowers are about half the size of the southern
magnolia’s, but this tree is a lot neater. A deciduous tree in its
northern range, it keeps its leaves through the winter here in Florida.
The sweet bay, also called the swamp magnolia, is often found growing
in standing water. Both species are native to Florida, but the range
of the sweet bay extends north into Pennsylvania while southern
magnolia’s range extends only to the northern border of North Carolina.
Southern magnolias are widely planted much farther north with special
cold-tolerant cultivars.

When fall came with its cooler
weather, it was time to move the four magnolias. The two southern
magnolias in the middle of the yard were first. I decided to plant
them out by the front fence at the edge of the oaks where they’d get
good sun and have enough space to do what they wanted. This way we can
still enjoy these glorious trees, but not have to deal with their
litter in the lawn.

The magnolias were planted less than 2 years ago, but still were hard to move.

The first step was to dig holes in the new location twice as deep as the
estimated root mass. Then I filled the bottom of the holes with pond
muck to provide some nutrients and to slow down the drainage in the
sandy soil. You could use leaves, mulch or other humus-rich material
if you don’t have a pond that needs cleaning. Then I scraped off the
mulch from around the trunk, re-cut the roots at the edge of the mulch
line and dug out soil from under the dense mass of surface roots. In
order not to make a mess on the grass, and to retain as much soil as
possible for re-filling in the hole, I placed the soil on a tarp. The
tarp was later used to transport the trees to their new location.

Because the trees are so big, I
called in my husband to help. We tipped each tree and its roots up and
out of the hole. We both dug some more to retain as many of the roots
as possible. None of the roots seemed to be any thicker than an inch
or so. With a lot of effort, especially for the 15-foot tree, we
rolled each one on its side and onto the tarp. Then, like a couple of
field mules pulling a plow, we dragged them to the new holes. The
holes needed reshaping once we tried to fit the root masses into them
because they were larger than estimated.

A magnolia in its new spot.

We
flooded the holes as we filled in the dirt, sand, more pond muck and
mulch around the edges of the roots to make sure that there’d be no
big air pockets. After we made sure each tree was vertical, we tamped
down the soil along the edges of the surface root mass and built a
berm of soil to hold any water. I’ve hand irrigated them daily while
waiting for significant rainfall. I’m not used to such a dry fall.

After tackling these big trees I
went after the four-foot magnolia growing at the edge of the woods.
While I knew I’d have to fight the root mass of the catbriars, big
oak trees and other roots in the woods, I didn’t think this would be
too hard compared to the bigger magnolias from the yard. Wrong.

Even though I’d pruned the roots in July, it hadn’t done any good
at all because it had very few surface roots and one giant taproot.
I dug out more than three feet of it, but I’ll be surprised if this
one makes it. There’s just not enough root surface area, but we’ll
see. One big advantage when working with the southern magnolia is
that the leathery leaves retain water well, but I also trimmed off
the side branches and its suckers to reduce the amount of vegetation
to support. (Update: this tree died, but I found out later that
it was a loblolly bay (Gordonia lasianthus), not a magnolia
at all.)

The last magnolia to move was the Asian magnolia(probably Magnolia
x soulangeana). It has purple flowers, but we got here too
late in the season to figure out its species. I’ll look at what
Home Depot carries and I’m sure I’ll find it there. Finally, an
easy transplant job, but it’ll be many years before it recovers
from its harsh pruning to look like the elegant tree it could be.
Magnolias just shouldn’t be pruned as part of a hedge.

With most of their root hairs torn off during transplant, the trees
have a more difficult time absorbing water. They’ll each get a good
deep watering each day for a few weeks. With all the transplants
done within a few days, the extra watering chores are combined.
I felt like the elephant girl in the circus lugging endless buckets
of water to her wards.

(Update: the Asian magnolia struggled for a few years in its new
site, but it died. I babied the two magnolias transplanted out into
the front meadow area andd they have thrived. But now I wish I'd
left them where they were and removed the lawn instead. I would
have added a bunch of native azaleas, palmettos, beautyberries,
coonties and some beautiful native muhly grass to create a native
garden and haven for birds. The magnolias out in the meadow are
too far away to really appreciate.)

Ginny Stibolt would like to hear from readers who have suggestions and
questions. After all, there are more than a few transplanted gardeners
Florida trying to figure out what works and what doesn’t in planting zone
8/9. She's wrote, "Sustainable Gardening for Florida," published
by University Press of Florida that was released in 2009. Now she's written
"Organic Methods for Growing Vegetables in Florida" with Melissa
Contreras in Miami. The new book was released in Feb 2013. You may contact
her or read extra details on her articles and other information posted
on her website: www.greengardeningmatters.com.